Rite of passage: Drive-through prisoner

It has been pouring rain for days. The skies have been cold, dark and dreary; if I didn’t know better, you might convince me I live in Talkeetna, Alaska, instead of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

During this messy weather, our newest staff member has been in town house-hunting. Yesterday, she flew back to Indiana but left her jeep at our office. She had told me the oil light had come on, and she was concerned because the vehicle is fairly new.

I told her I would check it out. I needed to run an errand, so I took her car to see if there was anything wrong, and there wasn’t.

As I headed home, I knew my wife had a long, hard day, and the next one would be even harder. Our son and his family are moving, and she has been helping take care of Titus the Honorable and Cohen the Goodhearted.

I called and asked if I could bring dinner home. That way, she could spend the evening resting instead of cooking and cleaning. She asked if I could stop by Arby’s and pick up a sandwich.

Since it was still pouring, I planned to use the drive-through lane. I guess I wasn’t the only one who had called his wife, because the drive-through had a rather long line. I waited patiently as the cars crept by to place their orders.

Finally, it was my turn. I hit the button to roll the window down, and nothing happened. Well, something did happen—the doors locked and unlocked. I could hear the muffled voice through the glass, “Welcome to Arby’s. How can I serve you today?”

I yelled through the closed window, “Give me a second?”

I guess the worker heard me, because she replied, “Just let me know when you’re ready.”

Cars were stacking up behind me as I frantically pulled, pushed and flipped any switches I could find. I looked up, and the car in front of me had pulled ahead, leaving an empty space between us. My panic level went up a notch.

I needed to get the window down. I searched for the handle, but you must have to pay extra for that convenience, because this jeep doesn’t have one. In my almost 55 years of driving, I had never been in a car that didn’t allow you to roll down the window manually.

I soon began to explore other avenues. Could I open the door? But I was too close to the speaker, and I didn’t want to scratch the jeep’s beautiful paint job. Besides that, the rain had continued, and I didn’t want to stick my head out in the downpour.

Again, the speaker came to life. Now, I wasn’t the only one panicking. The voice came again, much louder: “CAN I HELP YOU?”

I understood the worker’s concern. There were no cars left in front of me, and I was holding the rest of the line hostage. I wanted to yell back, “CAN YOU COME AND ROLL MY WINDOW DOWN?” but I knew she didn’t want to get out in the rain either.

I put the jeep in gear and crept forward until it was even with the takeout window. All I could do was raise my hands and shrug my shoulders at the worker as I moseyed on out of the drive-through lane. I pulled around into the parking lot, got out in the rain and retrieved my wife’s dinner.

The next day, I called the owner of the jeep and asked, “How in the world do you roll down your windows?” She laughed and said she had had the same problem. But her 10-year-old son showed her how to do it.

There are days when we can easily solve our problems, and there are days when we can’t. Last week was one of those frustrating times when things that should have worked didn’t.

I was frustrated over a new website that should only have taken a couple of hours to build but ended up taking five days. But I finally went back to the owner and Creator of my life and asked Him not to solve my problem but to give me peace in the storm. And He said, “The answer is in My Word.”

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:5). I may not have known how to roll down a window or finish a website, but I knew the One who could help me.

P.S. If anyone else needs to roll down the windows of a new Sport Jeep, you do it with several small toggles in the lower center of the dash. Now you know!

Translator

Messenger Staff

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